God's Native Language: Learning to Love Like Jesus

If you stopped people on the street and asked, "Who is the greatest lover in the world?", the answers would be wild. Some would say a Hollywood heartthrob. Others would name a magazine mogul. The more thoughtful might offer Mother Teresa or St. Francis of Assisi. It's a fun exercise, and it reveals how differently we define love.

But there's another answer, and it came from a carpenter in Nazareth.

The Greatest Lover Who Ever Lived
Jesus paid attention to people. That's the simplest way to describe His love. He noticed who was in front of Him, saw what they needed, and met that need like no one before or since.

At a wedding, the hosts ran out of wine, which in that culture meant a shame that could follow a family for years. Jesus quietly turned water into wine. The miracle was about the drink, but even more about sparing a couple from humiliation.

A leper, untouched by anyone for years, begged to be made clean. Jesus could have healed him with a word. Instead, Scripture says He reached out and touched him. Before He cured the man's body, He cared for his loneliness.

At a well in Samaria, He sat down with a woman her own community avoided, a member of a people His own people considered enemies. He talked with her heart to heart about the wounds she carried, and she ran back to her village telling everyone about the man who knew everything she had ever done.

He defended a weeping woman who poured perfume on His feet. He ate with a despised tax collector. He washed His disciples' dirty feet on the darkest night of His life. And on the cross, with His final breath, He said, "Father, forgive them."

None of these people could give Jesus anything. Several could have damaged His reputation. He loved them anyway.

A Word Worth Knowing: Agape
This week kicks off 30 Days of Love, and it's more than a sermon series. It's a campaign, a month-long, church-wide focus on learning to love the way Jesus loves. Maybe not as perfectly, but at least like Him.

To understand what that means, it helps to know the Greek word the New Testament uses for love: agape. It appears in the New Testament almost once per chapter.

Here's the fascinating part. Before Jesus, agape was a mild word meaning affection or preference, the way you might prefer one apple over another on a table. It was often used interchangeably with phileo, brotherly love. Both were conditional: I love you because you're my brother, my friend, or because you did something kind for me.

Then Jesus came, and the early Christians had a problem. There was no word big enough for what they had seen. So they took agape and rebranded it: unselfish, supernatural, unconditional love. I love you in spite of what you've done. I love you because you're made in God's image. I love you because Jesus asked me to.

The Goal of a Great Lover
The goal fits on a sticky note: notice others and make their lives better.

That's it. Notice people, then do something to improve their day, their situation, or their sense of being seen. It doesn't mean fixing everyone. Jesus didn't fix everyone. He offered hope, identity, and help with the things people couldn't do for themselves. Philippians 2:3-4 says to consider others as more important than ourselves, looking out for their interests and not only our own.

Why "God's Native Language"?
Jesus once said that when the devil lies, he speaks his native language, because he is the father of lies. Flip that around and you get something beautiful. When God loves, He speaks His native language, because He is not merely loving but the source of love itself.
Eight Reasons to Love Better (1 John 4)

The apostle John wrote this letter as an elderly man, the last living apostle, after a lifetime saturated in the love of Jesus. In a handful of verses, he gives us eight reasons to become more loving people.

1. Love comes from God. Everything good about love traces back to Him.
2. It's what God's children do. Those born of God behave like their Father, and God wants us to grow up to be like Him.
3. People who don't love don't know God. If we want to know Him well, our love will show it.
4. God is love. Not "God has love," but God is love. Love is the currency of heaven, and every bill has His face on it. We're made in His image, so we were made to love. Every selfless act brings a little more of heaven's will to earth, the way we pray in the Lord's Prayer.
5. Our love shows others what God is like. "No one has ever seen God," John writes, "but if we love one another, God remains in us." The pastor shared that he became a Christian as a young teenager after visiting a coffee house where people sang with raised hands and hugged instead of shaking hands. He had never seen love expressed like that. Watching them, he thought, I want that. That night, he prayed to receive Christ. People are watching how we love, and it matters more than we realize.
6. Love is the overflow of staying close to God. Think of the proximity principle: spend time around someone who's great at something, and some of it rubs off. Warren Buffett's inner circle became remarkably wealthy simply by spending years around a master investor. Who's best at love? God. Stay close to Him, and His love starts spilling over into how you treat everyone else.
7. Perfect love drives out fear. St. Francis loved God so completely that when his family pressured him to quit ministry and run the family business, he walked out of the house with nothing, trusting God to provide. And God did. Love made him fearless.
8. We love because He first loved us. This may be the most powerful reason of all.

"Were You This Cold for Me?"
The pastor told a true story about a missionary couple in Korea in the early 1900s who adopted a little boy. As he grew, he kept asking where he came from. On his ninth birthday, in the middle of winter, his parents drove him to a spot on a country road and told him the truth.

"We found you right here," his father said, "wrapped in a blanket. Around you were all of your mother's clothes. And around those clothes was your mother's body." She had been caught in the bitter cold, unable to reach safety, and she knew her baby wouldn't survive unless she gave him everything.

The boy got out of the car. He took off his coat and said, "Mommy, were you this cold for me?" Then his shoes and socks, and the rest. Standing in the snow, he shouted it again: "Mommy, were you this cold for me?"

That's the gospel in a single image. Someone gave everything for us before we ever knew to ask. Jesus gave His life to pay for our sins, and He loved us long before we loved Him. The fitting response is gratitude so deep that we can't help but share that love.

Love in Action: Mr. Rogers
In the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a reporter named Lloyd can't believe anyone could really love people the way Fred Rogers appears to, so he sets out to find the selfish motive. In one scene, Mr. Rogers visits Lloyd's family home, where Lloyd's father is dying. Notice how Fred draws attention to everyone in the room except himself. He even asks the dying man to pray for him. Think how much thought that takes, finding a way to honor someone in his final days. That's love: thinking deeply about another person and figuring out how to help.

The Invitation
If all of this is new to you, if the idea that God is love and that Jesus loves you feels unfamiliar, it really is true. Christians don't just talk about love; they have received the love of God, and that's where real love begins. You can start right now with a simple prayer: Jesus, I believe You're the Savior, and I need a Savior. Forgive my sins and lead me from now on.

And for the rest of us, the question is just as simple: who is God asking you to notice this week? Who needs to feel seen, touched, heard, or helped? Love like Jesus loves, one person at a time, starting today.